En Passant

From ACTU Secretary Sally McManus: Do not cross the Fairfax picket line. No buying, sharing, clicking Fairfax while journalists are on strike.

A good first start to independence and to building it on the ground would be for Fairfax workers to strike against the planned 1900 job cuts.

Comments about Gillard’s hair or her dress sense or lack of affability can’t be divorced from the wider oppression of women in society. They reinforce stereotypes about women as having a role that must fit within the dominant power structure of capitalism – as objects of men’s desire and displaying ‘feminine’ characteristics.

However Bob Brown was being too cute by half in blaming criticism of Gillard on sexism. After all this is the do nothing Government he supports and sustains so attacks on Labor are also a criticism of him and his do nothing Greens.

You cannot hide behind sexism to divert attention away from the failure of Labor to inspire its base. That is part of the problem – Labor’s neoliberalism.

A resurgence in struggle, in fighting for equal pay now, free abortion on demand, free childcare, would challenge the very structures of capitalist oppression. Therein lies the way forward, not tired bleating about sexist reporting that ignores the systemic oppression of women under capitalism.

The political battle for addressing human induced global warming will be won on the streets and in the workplaces of the world, not in the Murdoch and ABC boardrooms or the talkfest parliaments which represent the interests of the bourgeoisie.

This piece, by Martin Hirst from Ethical Martini and the AUT, is reproduced with his permission. Here is a link. I spent an interesting 24 hours in Christchurch on Friday and Saturday as a guest of the New Zealand Broadcasting School. I was a speaker at the school’s conference to celebrate 25 years of turning […]